Interreligious marriage

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Interreligious marriage, traditionally (especially in the Catholic Church) called mixed marriage, is marriage (either religious or civil) between partners professing different religions. Some religions prohibit interreligious marriage, while other religions allow it.

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[edit] Reasons for prohibition

Prohibitions against interreligious marriage without the conversion of the spouse can have a number of reasons:

  • Some religions view their rules on marriage as commandments from God.
  • A few religions view themselves as a priestly people, with a specific mission to carry out.
  • Some people believe that introducing two contradictory belief systems into a marriage is grounds for marital strife, and increases the rate of divorce.
  • Some believe that having parents of two opposing religions causes psychological stress on the children in such a marriage, as they often are effectively forced to "choose" one parent over another.
  • Religious intolerance. A person professing a different faith is considered incompatible and not worth marrying.
  • The possibility of temptation to "wrong" practices by the "outsider" spouse, as well as the possibility of the children growing up in the "other" faith, or torn between two faiths.
  • Some religions, such as the Druze religion, are closed communities and do not accept new members, whether through marriage or through conversion.

When a man and a woman professing different religions want to marry, and the religious laws of the faith upheld by one of them forbid this, they might:

[edit] Views of religions on interreligious marriage

[edit] Judaism

Orthodox Judaism strictly forbids interreligious marriage as well as any sexual intercourse with a member of a different faith. Intermarriage is seen as a deliberate rejection of Judaism, and an intermarried person is effectively cut off from most of the Orthodox community. However, some Chabad Lubavitch and Modern Orthodox Jews do reach out to intermarried Jews.

Reform Judaism and Reconstructionist Judaism (known internationally as Progressive Judaism) discourage intermarriage, but, since they do not view halacha as binding, have no mechanism for legal prohibition of the practice in the manner of the Conservative and Orthodox movements. Progressive rabbinical associations have no blanket prohibition on their members officiating at intermarriages. As a result, some Progressive Rabbis do perform such weddings without fear of the sanction faced by their Conservative counterparts. Intermarried Progressive Jews are encouraged to raise their children in the Jewish faith, and to become part of the local Jewish community, even if the Gentile partner does not convert to Judaism. Gentile spouses of Jews are welcome in Progressive synagogues as long as they do not proselytise. See also: Reform views on intermarriage.

In addition to being prohibited by Jewish law and custom, intermarriage is often criticised by rabbis and other community leaders as demographically harming the Jewish people, since relatively few children of mixed marriages are raised as Jews. (See also: Silent Holocaust) In the U.S. the Jewish community has decreased dramatically due to high rates of intermarriage, low rates of Jewish education and the late ages of marriage. This last trend leads to later ages of childbirth and fewer children being born. For every 20 Jews, there are now only 17 Jewish children. On this topic Elliot N. Dorff writes:

[There is now] a major demographic crisis for the Jewish community. Nothing less than the future of the Jewish community and of Judaism depends upon fertile Jews having three or four children per couple. We as a people are in deep demographic trouble. We lost one-third of our numbers during the Holocaust....The currant Jewish reproductive rate among American Jews between 1.6 and 1.7. That statistic means we are killing ourselves off as a people....This social imperative has made propagation arguably the most important mitzvah of our time....To refuse to try to have them, or to plan to have only one or two is to refuse to accept one of God's great gifts. It is also to renege on the duty we all have to create the next generation. . . "
This is My Friend, This is My Beloved

Conservative Judaism rejects intermarriages as being a violation of halakha, and as causing severe demographic harm to the Jewish people. Conservative rabbis are not allowed to perform intermarriages. However, the Leadership Council of Conservative Judaism has a more nuanced understanding of this issue than does Orthodoxy. The Conservative movement has stated:

In the past, intermarriage...was viewed as an act of rebellion, a rejection of Judaism. Jews who intermarried were essentially excommunicated. But now, intermarriage is often the result of living in an open society....If our children end up marrying non-Jews, we should not reject them. We should continue to give our love and by that retain a measure of influence in their lives, Jewishly and otherwise. Life consists of constant growth and our adult children may yet reach a stage when Judaism has new meaning for them. However, the marriage between a Jew and non-Jew is not a celebration for the Jewish community. We therefore reach out to the couple with the hope that the non-Jewish partner will move closer to Judaism and ultimately choose to convert. Since we know that over 70 percent of children of intermarried couples are not being raised as Jews...we want to encourage the Jewish partner to maintain his/her Jewish identity, and raise their children as Jews.
Leadership Council of Conservative Judaism, Statement on Intermarriage. Adopted on March 7, 1995

Jewish law prohibits conversion to Judaism merely for the purpose of marriage, but, outside of Orthodoxy, people who express a sincere interest in Judaism that was sparked by a desire to marry Jews are generally welcomed as proselytes.

[edit] Samaritanism

Samaritan men are allowed to marry women outside their community, on the condition that the wife accept the Samaritans' practices. This lies short of conversion and can qualify as interreligious marriage. The decision to allow this kind of marriage has been taken in modern times to keep the Samaritan community from dying out of genetic disease.

[edit] Christianity

Many Christians believe that anyone has the freedom to choose her or his partner for life, and that love has no boundaries. This attitude is found most often among those who may be identified as progressive or liberal Christians.

Some Christian denominations forbid interreligious marriage, drawing from 1 Corinthians 7 and 2 Corinthians 6:14, and in some cases Deuteronomy 7:3.

The Catholic church requires permission for mixed marriages, which it terms all unions between Catholics and baptized non-Catholics, but such marriages are valid, though illicit, without it: the pastor of the Catholic party has authority to grant such permission. Marriages between a Catholic and an unbaptized person are not sacramental, and fall under the impediment of disparity of worship and are invalid without a dispensation, for which authority lies with the ordinary of the place of marriage.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, colloquially referred to as the "Mormon" church, does not forbid interreligious marriage, but such marriages cannot be performed in special buildings called Temples, where the faithful believe they can be sealed (or married) for not only their lifetimes, but for time and all eternity. Temples, once dedicated, are open to only faithful members of the Church. It is believed that to receive eternal life the children of god need to be married for all eternity, thus interreligious marriages are seen as lasting only the duration of the couple's mortal life. Non-Mormon partners have a remarkably high rate of conversion to Mormonism.

[edit] Bahá'í Faith

According to the Bahá'í Faith, all religions are inspired by God, therefore interreligious marriage is allowed. In that case, the Bahá'í ceremony should be performed, and the non-Bahá'í rite or ceremony can also be performed. If it is the case that both ceremonies are performed, the non-Bahá'í ceremony should not invalidate the Bahá'í ceremony and it should be made clear to all that the Bahá'í partner is a Bahá'í and is not accepting the religion of the other partner by going through with the ceremony. The Bahá'í partner should also abstain from undertaking any vows or statements that commit the Bahá'í to any declaration of faith in another religion or that are contrary to the principles of the Bahá'í Faith. The two ceremonies should happen on the same day, but the order is not important. The Bahá'í ceremony may be performed in the place of worship of the other religion provided that it is given equal respect to that of the non-Bahá'í ceremony and is clearly distinct from the non-Bahá'í ceremony.

[edit] Hinduism

Hinduism declares that there are always innumerable paths to God. And that one’s belief or perception of God is an individual matter and best left to the individual to decide his own path.

Thus, the Hindus have never hesitated to respect the freedom of other faiths to coexist and flourish and thus inter-religious marriages are accepted in Hindu society. It also does not puts any obligation of faith on the non-Hindu partner. Inter-caste marriages were somewhat frowned upon but this too is becoming more acceptable with time. In metropolitan cities it is common to find couples with different faith, caste and regional background. There are numerous laws in the Indian legal system, safeguarding inter-faith marriage. Examples of such marriages occasionally appear in Kipling's stories.

[edit] Islam

The most commonly accepted interpretation is that Islam only allows a man to marry a non-Muslim only if she is Christian or Jewish. However the order is for believing man to marry believers of God only. The wife need not adopt any Muslim laws, and the husband is not allowed to keep her from going to church or synagogue. One of Muhammad's wives was Christian Copt (Maria al-Qibtiyya) and another was Jewish (Safiyya bint Huyayy). According to this interpretation, which is based on the verses that prohibit marriage between Muslims and dualists, Muslim women are not allowed to marry non-believers.

Islam clearly forbids Muslim women from marrying non-believing men. Some Muslim scholars (ahli kitab) go so far as to state that such a marriage is an act of apostasy. If a non-Muslim woman is married to a non-believing man, and she converts to Islam, the marriage is suspended until her husband converts to Islam. When he converts a new marriage is not needed.

[edit] Interreligious marriages in the Bible

Even though Orthodox Judaism does not allow intermarriages, the Bible mentions a number of these among the Hebrews.

The marriages of the patriarchs cannot be considered interreligious as there were no Hebrew women to marry. It is true that even for the first Jews it was considered proper to marry relatives, and the Bible disapproves of Esau and Judah, who married Canaanites instead. This was most probably because they endangered the survival of the tribe.

The first actually interreligious marriage mentioned is that of Moses. Generations later, the sons of Naomi married Ruth the Moabite and her sister. It is unclear whether they converted to the pagan Moabite religion. Rabbinical commentaries state that Ruth had already converted to Judaism before she married Boaz, although there is no explicit mention of a formal conversion in the biblical text.

The Biblical character most notorious for interreligious marriages was perhaps king Solomon. Many of his 700 wives were non-Hebrew and not only continued their pagan practices, but also tempted Solomon to participate therein.

Later on, in Babylonian captivity many members of aristocratic Hebrew families married local women. After some of these returned to their homeland, Ezra condemned these intermarriages and attempted to force such families to divorce. It is not clear whether he succeeded, however, many scholars agree that it was those husbands that wrote or edited the Book of Ruth.

Paul of Tarsus is often interpreted as forbidding the interreligious marriage of Christians in the sixth chapter of 2 Corinthians.

[edit] Famous interreligious marriages

Notably, in Christian mythology, delineating Jesus Christ's genealogy from a Jewish perspective, the Gospel of Matthew mentions a number of interreligious marriages in his lineage: those of Judah and Tamar, and of Ruth and Boaz, mentioned above, as well as Rahab, the prostitute of Jericho who aided the Israelites in taking that city, with the Israelite prince Salmon.

One of greatest emperor in Indian histroy, Akbar - a Muslim, married Hindu princess Jodhabai. Both of them practised their own faith and had great respect for the faith of other.

[edit] References

  • This is My Friend, This is My Beloved: A Pastoral Letter on Human Sexuality (Jewish) Elliot N. Dorff, The Rabbinical Assembly
  • It All Begins with a Date: Jewish Concerns about Intermarriage: Jewish Concerns about Intermarriage, Alan Silverstein, Jason Aronson, 1995, ISBN 1-56821-542-8
  • Leadership Council of Conservative Judaism, Statement on Intermarriage. Adopted on March 7, 1995

[edit] External links

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